Skipping a Beat

by Sarah Pekkanen

  I leaned back in my chair and drew up my knees, wrapping my arms around them. I didn’t need Michael. The question was whether or not I wanted him.

  He’d left a few minutes earlier, saying he had to go into his office and tie up some loose ends. Before he’d gone, he’d invited me to have dinner with him, and something in his expression reminded me of how he’d looked back in high school, when he’d offered to stay with me at Becky Hendrickson’s house.

  I’d felt sharp tears prick my eyes, which had infuriated me.

  “Just go,” I’d said brusquely. “I don’t know if I’ll be here when you get back.”

  He hadn’t tried to argue; he’d turned around and silently walked to his car. But after a moment, I’d gone to the window and seen him sitting in the driver’s seat, his head resting on the steering wheel. He’d stayed that way for several minutes before starting his engine.

  Now I stood up and stacked my yellow pad back into the box. Suddenly I felt at loose ends; I needed to get out of the house. It was an unusually warm day for late fall, and I wanted to be outside. I’d go to Great Falls and walk until my mind cleared, I decided impulsively, scooping up my keys. I hadn’t been there for a while, but I’d always loved hiking along the green trails and rocky banks of the Potomac River; it was a little bit of wilderness draped around the stone and asphalt that dominated D.C. I used to go there after we moved to town because it reminded me of our river in West Virginia. Sometimes I’d pack a water bottle and sandwich and take long walks on Sunday mornings. Michael came with me at first, but once he began creating DrinkUp, he stopped. Remembering that erased the ache I’d felt in my chest when I saw him slumped in his car.

  Half an hour later I was pulling into the parking lot at Great Falls Park. I grabbed my iPod out of my purse and tucked the buds into my ears as I headed for the main walking trail. It was quiet today, since it was a weekday afternoon and most people were still at work. After a few minutes, I glimpsed something between the trees—a big flat rock jutting out over the river’s edge. It looked like the perfect place to sit and think, to lose myself in the endless rush of water. I pushed back a few prickly branches, feeling a quick burst of pain as a thorn caught the skin of my palm. As I drew closer, I could see a boy was already on my rock. He was small and skinny—maybe ten years old—with an elfin face dominated by huge blue eyes. By the boy’s feet was a dog, and it was hard to tell who was more scruffy.

  “Hi,” the kid said cheerfully as I passed by. “This is a cool spot, isn’t it?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I grunted. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

  He threw the stick into the water, and the dog leapt in after it.

  “Do you live around here?” the boy asked. Clearly he was lacking a filter that prevented his thoughts from flying out of his mouth like popcorn. An adult I could’ve glared into silence, this kid would probably mercilessly grill me about why I was so grumpy.

  “Yes,” I said. “Well, sort of. Not for long, though, I think.”

  He nodded, like it all made perfect sense.

  I glanced out over the water, then did a double take. “Hey, I don’t see your dog.”

  “I know,” he said calmly. “His name’s Bear. I’m Noah, by the way.”

  What was it with this kid? Hadn’t he ever gotten the stranger danger lecture?

  “Are your parents here?” I asked. I looked at my watch. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “School’s been out for half an hour.” He dug into his pocket and came up with a cell phone. “And I’m allowed to come here alone if I call my mom when I get here and before I leave.”

  He looked up at me, and his forehead wrinkled. “I’m twelve, you know. You thought I was younger, didn’t you?”

  “Of course not,” I lied. “I was going to guess thirteen.”

  I scanned the rippling surface of the water again, more slowly this time. Where was that sandy head? I felt a stab of fear: Had the dog gotten tangled up in something below the surface?

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what my favorite subject is?” Noah said. “Adults always ask me that. I have no idea why.”

  “Bear can swim, right?” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm.

  “Like a fish,” Noah assured me. “Math, by the way. It’s my favorite. The problem with everything else is that there is rarely a perfect answer. Math has just one answer, and you get to figure out what it is. That’s the fun part.”

  I shaded my eyes with my hand.

  “Shit! I mean, shoot! I don’t see Bear anywhere.” I jumped down from the rock and began running along the waterfront. This boy’s dog was going to die on my watch, and the kid didn’t even seem to care. He’d been under for how long now—fifteen seconds? Twenty?

  “Algebra’s really cool,” Noah called.

  I ran faster, tripped over a tree root, and sprawled on the ground.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. My God, was there something wrong with him? He seemed bright enough, but didn’t he understand what was happening?

  “Noah, I don’t see your dog!” I yelled. Sickening images flooded my mind: Bear struggling underwater, his legs tangled up in roots, his paws helplessly clawing toward the surface … How much longer could he last?

  I could tear off my shoes and dive in, but I’d never find him in time. The river was too big. There wasn’t anything I could do, and in another few minutes, Noah would realize what was happening, and—

  “Good boy, Bear!” he shouted. The dog was swimming toward the rock, the stick clenched between his teeth.

  Bear climbed up onto the rock, Noah threw the stick again, and the dog dove into the water. Dove. When he finally broke the surface, Bear was fifteen yards away from where he’d entered.

  “Told you he could swim like a fish,” Noah said as Bear spotted the stick and went under again.

  I sat there in the dirt, rubbing my sore kneecap through the fresh tear in my jeans as Noah clambered over and stuck out a hand that hadn’t been acquainted with soap and a running sink in a while. He helped me to my feet, and I brushed myself off. It was impossible to be mad at this kid. Freckles danced around his cheeks and nose, and his lips curved up even when he wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t cute in a traditional sense—no one would ever hire him to pose for a Pottery Barn Kids catalog—but there was something immensely appealing about him. He reminded me of someone I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  Bear climbed back onto the rock, then raced over to me, planting two muddy paws on my pants and almost knocking me back down.

  “Down!” Noah commanded. The dog ignored him and tried to French-kiss me.

  “It’s fine,” I said, and in a way, it really was: at least Noah and Bear had distracted me from the mess of my life.

  “Do you want a chip?” the kid asked, holding out a crumpled bag.

  I shook my head and recoiled from the evil carbs like he’d offered me a sample of nuclear waste. The boy reached into the bag and pulled out an oval chip, just slightly brown around the edges, and bit into it. It looked greasy and salty and crisp. I’d skipped lunch, I realized as my mouth watered.

  Oh, hell. I’d probably burned off a few hundred calories in the last five minutes from stress alone. “I’d love a chip,” I said, climbing onto the rock again.

  Noah passed me the bag, and I pulled out a few, greedily shoving them into my mouth. I hadn’t had a potato chip in forever. They were even better than I’d remembered.

  “I’m always hungry, too,” Noah observed as I licked the salt off my fingertips.

  I plopped down next to him. Maybe his upbeat mood would be infectious, and it wasn’t like I had anything better to do today.

  “I can’t stop eating potato chips,” he confided. “I’m already on my second bag today. Isn’t it funny that salt makes you feel thirsty, but when you’re thirsty, you crave salt because it helps your body hold on to water? I learned that in science class.”

  “Interesting,” I lied again.

  “It’s
this circular thing,” Noah said. “I can’t figure out which came first.”

  “Yep,” I said, because Noah didn’t seem the type to let a conversation end until he’d wrung it dry. “Kind of like the chicken or the egg.”

  “What do you mean?” Noah asked.

  “Oh, it’s just this question that doesn’t have an answer,” I said, waving around my hand. “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

  “Well, duh. The egg.”

  I smiled indulgently, sensing a teaching moment. “Ah, but who laid the egg?”

  Noah frowned.

  “Don’t worry. Even adults can’t figure it out,” I comforted him. “That’s why it’s this famous question.”

  “The egg came first,” Noah said impatiently. “Hens lay eggs. Adult male chickens are called roosters, but some people use the term chicken interchangeably for any adult fowl, so asking about the chicken or the egg might include males, who don’t lay eggs.”

  I gaped at him.

  “Now, if you’d asked me, ‘Which came first, the hen or the egg?’ That, I wouldn’t have an answer for.”

  “But …” I couldn’t think of what to say. It was probably best to move on from this teaching moment.

  “What are you listening to?” Noah asked, pointing to my iPod.

  “Wagner,” I said, relieved to be back on more comfortable ground. “He was this German opera composer.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “I like his music, but no, I don’t personally like him.”

  “Why not?”

  I rubbed my finger over my iPod’s screen and thought about how to answer.

  “Well, he was so anti-Semitic that Hitler loved him, for starters,” I said slowly. “I’ve always wondered how such a terrible human being could create such a thing of beauty.”

  “Can I listen?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.” I unwrapped the earbuds from around my neck and handed them to Noah. After a moment, he closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was smiling.

  “I like it,” he said.

  “Me, too. Not everybody does, though. Hey,” I said as a thought struck me, “did you ever see the Star Wars movies? They’re kind of old, but—”

  Noah cut me off. “It’s only one of my favorites. The special effects are kind of funny now, though. I mean, they’re so obvious. Like when Han Solo’s ship goes to warp speed? It’s just these lines of white on the screen, and they’re supposed to make you feel like you’re flying.”

  “Next time you watch it, notice how there are these little bits of music that play when a certain character comes on-screen. Like with Luke Skywalker, the music is kind of brave and bright, right? Well, those are called leitmotifs. Wagner is the guy who created the idea of leitmotifs, but he did it for opera characters.”

  “Seriously?” Noah leaned over and picked up a stick, then flung it far out into the river. Bear sprang off the rock and landed in the water with a terrific splash. “Cool. Is Wagner still alive?”

  “Nope,” I said. “He died a long time ago.”

  “Hmm.” Noah pondered this for a moment, then said, “Hey, I’ve got a trick question. Say you go out to dinner with two friends. You each pay ten dollars, but then the waiter realizes he overcharged you because the bill was only twenty-five dollars. So the waiter goes and takes five bucks out of the cash register, and he gives you each a dollar back, but he keeps two dollars for himself as a tip. So you’ve each paid nine dollars, and he gets a two-dollar tip. But that’s only twenty-nine dollars total. What happened to the missing dollar?”

  I blinked rapidly a few times. “What?”

  “Think about it. If you can’t figure it out, I’m usually here after school. I’ll tell you the answer next time.”

  “Next time?” I repeated dumbly.

  “I’ll bring more chips,” Noah said. He tossed the stick into the water again. Didn’t that dog ever get tired? Didn’t the kid ever stop talking?

  Noah looked over at me and grinned. And when the dog’s head broke the surface, I could swear he was doing the exact same thing.

  * * *

  Eighteen

  * * *

  “IS IT WRONG TO want to bitch-slap a saint?” I asked Isabelle a few hours later as I cradled the phone between my ear and shoulder and popped a medicinal chunk of dark chocolate into my mouth. I’d come home and taken a long, hot shower after hanging out with Noah, but by the time I’d gotten dressed and dried my hair, Michael still hadn’t returned from the office.

  “Trouble in paradise?” she asked.

  I wandered into our living room and sank onto a couch, wincing as I bent my scraped knee. “How do people do it?”

  “Oh, honey, I’ve been waiting for us to have this little talk. First the man takes out a condom, but only after buying the woman lots of dinners and complimenting her shoes. But of course he can’t like them so much that he wants to walk around in them, because that would mean we’d need to have a whole different kind of talk—”

  “How do people stay married?” I interrupted.

  “You’re asking me? I was married for six minutes, and I think we were both drunk for five and a half of them.”

  “Do you know anyone who’s happy? Who’s really in love with their spouse?”

  Isabelle considered it. “Posh Spice? What does she have to complain about?”

  “But didn’t Becks hit on their nanny or something?” I asked.

  “I think that was Jude Law. What is it with hot celebrities lusting after their nannies anyway?” she mused, just before breaking into an off-key and off-lyric rendition of “Just a spoonful of medicine makes the sugar go down.”

  “Stop it,” I ordered. “Don’t even think about taking up a new career. As either a singer or a nanny.”

  “But those Beckham boys need a helping hand at home,” she said. “I’d institute shirtless Fridays for all fathers in that house. Think of the laundry they’d save. Nudity is very Scandinavian, you know.”

  “They’re British,” I said.

  “Same continent.”

  “Take Dale and Bettina,” I said. “What brought them together? Do you think they were ever in love?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Perhaps they’re not the best example,” Isabelle said. “You weren’t just thinking of them having sex, were you?”

  “Thanks for putting that image in my mind,” I said. “Hang on while I go dip my brain in a bucket of bleach.”

  “Look, marriages are strange,” she said. “Did I ever tell you about the woman I know whose husband cheated on her for four years? They worked it out, if you can believe it. She says she loves him more now than she ever did before.”

  “She forgave him?” I asked incredulously.

  “To hear her talk about it, they started over. And this time around, they’re doing things differently. They go see a counselor every week, even when things between them are good, then they go out for dinner afterward. It’s a little annoying being around them, frankly, because those saps are always holding hands.”

  “I don’t know if I could ever be that forgiving,” I said. “It seems kind of weird. I mean, with Michael—he had a fling. But four years?”

  “She says they almost became strangers in their first marriage. She’s glad the affair happened, in an odd kind of way. It ripped them apart for a while, but now they’re happier than ever. She said if she had a choice—to live out their lives in their old marriage, or go through the pain to get to this one—she’d choose this one any day of the week.”

  “But I bet her husband didn’t give away all of their money,” I said.

  “Yeah, he’s loaded,” Isabelle said. “Actually, I think most of the money is hers. Hedge funds.”

  “I never dreamed Michael would be this successful,” I said slowly. “When we moved here, I figured we’d both make enough money for a house and a couple cars, maybe take a nice vacation every year. But I never imagined … this.”

  Even tho
ugh I knew Isabelle couldn’t see me, I swept out my hand to encompass our living room in cool tones of blue and cream and rose, with its three separate groupings of furniture. “Someday it probably will feel like a dream, though,” I said, almost to myself.

  “So he’s definitely going through with it?” Isabelle asked.

  I sat up abruptly. “Why do you ask that?”

  “I was just wondering if after his … experience … started to wear off, if he might rethink things.”

  “Isabelle, that’s just what I was thinking,” I said excitedly. “It makes sense, right?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, drawing out the words. “Maybe not, if what happened to him was powerful enough. I was just wondering.”

  I lay back down and stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah. I guess we’ll find out. So what are you up to today? Still thinking about Beth?”

  “Every minute. She should have the letter by now. I know her parents said they were going to tell her about the adoption, so it’s not like I’m going to come as this big surprise. Or maybe I am; maybe she doesn’t think about me at all. Anyway, I’m trying to stay busy. In fact, Jake just drove up, so I need to run—literally,” she said. Jake was Isabelle’s personal trainer, but he was fifteen years older than she, and he had the wiry body of a long-distance runner. Since he was a competitive swimmer, he also had the unsettling habit of shaving his body. “It’s just not right,” she’d once complained. “Isn’t having a crush on your personal trainer a requirement for women? I mean, how else do you motivate yourself to show up?” Instead, Jake was madly in love with Isabelle and aggressively spotted her when she lifted weights.

  “Are you wearing spandex, you little tease?” I joked.

  She snorted. “I’m just hoping he doesn’t make me do endless squats like last time. He was panting more heavily than I was. Plus I’m just narcissistic enough to like the attention.”

  “Maybe it’s better than getting a hot young guy so you don’t have to primp before you work out,” I said. “Think of the time you’re saving.”